164 PROF. E. HULL, ON THE SPREAD OF EXISTING ANIMALS 
horns I will give you two pounds for every one we find.” In a 
short time he reappeared with six men with spades, and lie guided 
us to the part of the bog where he had found the antlers already 
mentioned. 
The men went to work, and one of them soon came upon some- 
thing hard about 5 feet below the surface. On following up this, 
and removing the peaty matter, we found not only a handsome pair 
of antlers in good preservation, but also the skull to which they 
were attached, and also the complete skeleton of the animal to which 
these had belonged. They were reposing upon a firm white marl 
bottom, which consisted of very minute fresh-water shells, which 
must, many centuries ago, have formed the bottom of a fresh-water 
lake. Encouraged thus, we resumed our excavations, until we had 
exhumed the remains of six complete animals as above mentioned, 
all within a space of twenty or thirty yards square. 
Not long afterwards I called upon our friend, Professor Hull, 
then head of the Geological Department in Ireland, and asked him 
how it happened that the animals were grouped in such a fashion, 
and how they came to die there, as there were no marks of wounds 
on any of their bones, and also how came it that the females were 
so seldom found 1 He replied that the herd must have been crossing 
a frozen lake, and that the ice having given way, they were 
drowned. As to the females, he said that, having no antlers, they 
escaped notice often, and when found by the country people are 
usually neglected, being mistaken for horses’ skulls. Thus ended a 
very curious and very interesting experience. I carried oft' my 
prizes, and the farmer carried off his money and the diggers theirs. 
Itev. Dr. Irving writes. — I have read with much interest the 
proof of your paper on “ The Fauna of the Atlantic Islands.” In 
favour of your view as to the epeirogenic explanation of the spread 
of that fauna, I am not quite sure that you may not take a wider 
time-limit than you seem to do, and extend it backwards to include 
the Miocene, which Zittel years ago worked out as a period of 
elevation of North-Western Europe on palaeontological grounds, 
giving definite expression to his views by his map of the geography 
of the Miocdnzeit in his little work Ant der Urzeil, which I have 
quoted in several recent papers. 
There is a point previously raised as to the Osmunda regalis. 
That plant is not at all confined to Ireland. At Wellington 
